The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Right from the opening scene, you know you're in for something special. And the next two hours don't disappoint in the least, giving you what amounts to a two-hour chase scene that spans the globe, capping off with some of the most breathlessly intense auto action I've ever seen, and some damn satisfying narrative closure. With this entry, the Bourne trilogy as a whole actually manages to do something highly unusual: every film in the series is better than any of the ones that came before it in almost every way. Paul Greengrass' direction here is tighter than it was in Supremacy, which was itself more compelling than Doug Liman's work on Identity. With Ultimatum, the action is set at a blistering pace with some exceptionally unpredictable twists thanks to its adherence to a believable but exaggerated action, while the drama of Jason Bourne's identity comes to a head in unexpected ways. About the only complaint any reasonable person could have with it is how the camera work all has that shoulder-mounted, nausea-inducing look to it, but really it just makes everything feel even more spontaneous and plausibly improvised. Action films don't come any better, smarter, more interesting, or more intense than the Bourne films, and this is the best of the lot.

10 out of 10.